Nick Hodge,
Publisher
June 5, 2025
We just returned from taking the family on a surprise trip to Disney World.
The kids — kindergarten, first, and third — are the perfect ages to experience the magic.
But the magic isn’t cheap.
While traveling, I emailed a colleague to set up a meeting for when I returned, and he ended his reply by saying, “Hopefully you can get out of there for less than $20,000.”
All in, he’s not far off for a family of five with cross-country travel, hotel, transportation, park access, and meals.
And if you don’t want to stand in 90-minute lines in the 90% Orlando humidity, the Lightning Lane and VIP access are going to run up the bill even faster. We did both.
So it’s a good thing my portfolio was seeing some magic of its own over the past week, with multiple accounts hitting new highs based on recommendations like these that I’ve been sharing with you.
Mining Magic
It wasn’t lost on me how many themes and rides at Disney are resource-related.
My palms itched as we rode the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train in Magic Kingdom, where you literally ride in a minecart through an underground gem mine. The gem colors and underground scenes are a perfect analog for what’s really powering the magic.
In Epcot, Spaceship Earth takes you through the history of communication and technology, including a section showing the development of early metallurgy and later computer tech.
Star Tours in Hollywood Studios takes you into the Star Wars universe, where space mining and galactic resource control play a critical role.
But the kids' favorite ride was Avatar Flight of Passage in Animal Kingdom. Where you biometrically “link” to a Banshee and soar over Pandora.
Avatar’s entire plot, of course, revolves around humans strip-mining Pandora for unobtanium, a fictional superconductor and energy source.
The name unobtanium was no accident — it mirrors the scarcity and geopolitical tension around critical elements like rare earths that we see today.
And while you won’t find unobtanium on the periodic table, you will find things like europium and terbium.
It’s these very metals that power that magic of Disney. The rides, monorail, maglev-like trains, and autonomous people movers across the properties all require electric motors, magnets, and batteries that simply won't function without rare earths and other critical metals.
There’s a reason sci-fi and fantasy stories often use mining as a plot device, especially when it comes to conflicts over strategic materials.
It is art reflecting the real-world battle for global resource control that we experience every single day.
And that battle is as fierce and profitable as ever.
I have been covering for you China’s banning of rare earth exports and what it means for global supply chains and your portfolio.
While I was away, trade negotiations with China broke down and the US is now facing rare earth shortages that could bring manufacturing to its knees.
The New York Times framed it like this on Monday, in an article titled, “U.S. Dependence on China for Rare Earth Magnets Is Causing Shortages”:
The United States allowed its rare earth metals industry to move to China and could now face severe economic disruption as China limits crucial supplies.
Two decades ago, factories in Indiana that turned rare earth metals into magnets moved production to China — just as demand for the magnets was starting to soar for everything from cars and semiconductors to fighter jets and robots.
The United States is now reckoning with the cost of losing that supply chain. The Chinese government abruptly halted exports of rare earth magnets to any country on April 4 as part of its trade war with the United States.
Now, American and European companies are running out of the magnets.
American automakers are the hardest hit, with executives warning that production at factories across the Midwest and South could be cut back in the coming days and weeks. Carmakers need the magnets for the electric motors that run brakes, steering and fuel injectors. The motors in a single luxury car seat, for example, use as many as 12 magnets.
I’m not sure how many rare earth magnets the seats on Disney’s Avatar ride require.
But I know my portfolio was soaring alongside me given the recent performance of the two stocks I outline in this research video.
One is already producing rare earth concentrates right here in the US. The other is set to begin recycling rare earth magnets in Texas with support from the State Department.
They are both up nearly 50% in the past three months as these developments play out.
Unobtanium may be fictional—but the panic over running out of real-world equivalents like neodymium and dysprosium is very real.
Click here to put that kind of magic to work for you.
Call it like you see it,
Nick Hodge
Publisher, Daily Profit Cycle